yeah, no problem.

You are well on your way. I wish I had such good fortune when I started. I had to spend most of my 20's living in the Alaskan bush flying Cessnas. It stunk.

As always, the best of luck

SkyHigh

thanks, sad thing is I would enjoy that lifestyle the most, me, a simple airplane and no one to bother me

Life is full of experiences and Alaska bush flying I always though would be an exceptional one.

That there is some funny chit. Let me tell you...121 flying is the easiest, least challenging flying I have ever done. It is a joke really. I flew those Lears and worked 100% harder doing it. I am now at a 121 carrier without any 121 PIC time. SWA didnt seem to mind me flying those little Lears around. They have hired a lot of FlexJet pilots and continue to do so. Get off your 121 high horse, because it is not all that challenging.

There's a great deal of old turboprop guys still on major hiring boards. Why would they cut off the guys that have truly taken the abuse that you speak of (turboprop life is harder than jet life, you know that), fly harder, handfly, fly shorter legs, etc., etc...

I won't believe there's a pilot shortage until it trickles upward to the majors.

Urrgh, I guess me, I am middle aged and starting over.

IFR MEL Piston time is not worthless. In fact, that is more than enough to get you in a job that results in flying a 75,000lb jet international. The regionals are begging for IFR / MEL pilots.

I think what is "worthless" is the way our profession has allowed the outsouring of almost 50% of network flying. SkyWest, or ASA, are many times the operations that airlines like Southern, NorthEast, Val-u-Jet, Piedmont, Allegheny, or any of those national carriers that were thought of as Majors were back in the day.

As an MD88 pilot, I feel comfortable in saying a CRJ900 is a whole lot more aircraft than a DC-9 was.

Not picking on you - you write interesting things that are worthy of a reply.

The majors have outsourced the majority of any growth in narrow body flying. NorthWest is shrinking their DC-9 and Airbis fleet in favor of CRJ's at Compass, Pinnacle and Mesaba.

Those major jobs are nearly twice as rare as they once were. Between the loss of 3 seat jets and RJ's Delta's list is 6,900 down from almost twice that number. With age 65 looming (which shut the door at FedEx even before it happened) there is not going to be a "shortage" for the good jobs any time soon. Now is probably as good as it gets.

Pilots need to focus on improving the lot of the professionals at the non-brand regional carriers who are the defacto narrow body majors these days.

I know plenty of 36 year olds that make about the same or less than 50k year. Not everyone has six figure salaries at least not were I live. Most of my family lives in north New Jersey. My uncle their only makes about 60k per year and thats probably all he will ever make.

Hi!

The Pilot Shortage has already trickled up to the majors. SWA cut their PIC requirement by 300 hours. DAL didn't get as many Mil guys as they wanted. UAL (and, I think, NWA) aren't getting anywhere as many qualified applicants as they planned on.

The big Asian carriers are sucking wind bad. They used to require a type rating and a lot of time to hire a street captain. My buddy has no widebody, no heavy, and no oceanic experience, and he was told he met the qualifications for a -777 street captain.

When UPS, USAir, FedEx, SWA and AA are all hiring again, it will be unbelievable. Good for us, a NIGHTMARE if you're a recruiter.

cliff
YIP

PS-The FAA says that by 2011 the domestic pax #s will be up by 26%.
The number of ATP pilots will be flat.
The number of commercial pilots will decline.

How is THIS going to work???